Advice on how to market a product I created?

That's a bit tough to do James given that I have no webpage on which it can be downloaded or bought or to which I can direct Adwords traffic. I guess I am hoping to hear about whether or not you all think there might be a market for that type of thing and how one might capitalize on it.

Let's say that the ppc traffic shows some promise. Would you continue to try and sell it through ppc traffic? Hoping that the cost of such traffic is less than what you make from the profit of course.

Would you market it entirely through ppc traffic?

The other problem is that I have had problems with Paypal in the past and am not sure that I can use them at this point (through no fault of my own literally).

Is such a product doomed without Paypal? I can't afford a true merchant account at this point.

Would a joint venture with somebody where I allow them to market this exclusively and where they collect the money entirely and just give me a small percentage be workable? I've never done a joint venture so I have no clue as to how these things can work.

Carlos

Thanks for the input Dan. Yours is the second recommendation to do PPC. That seems like a good approach. I'll have to flesh the script out, make it more user friendly, put up a squeeze page and see what PPC traffic might tell me about it's potential (or lack of).

Carlos

More excellent input!

Thanks very much for sharing your ideas with me!

After some discussions with others over this script it has become rather obvious to me that it is indeed a specialized script which would only be useful to people who create a lot of content and have a need to thus constantly be updating their sites with it (assuming the content is stored in MySQL by the CMS being used).

Furthermore that such content is first inserted and formatted to be what one wants locally before uploading to a hosted site (once it is made to look exactly like one wants locally first).

While this kind of script would come in very handy to folks that fit that criteria...these types of folks are very hard to find I think. They are out there...I mean I am one of them (I would never go back now that I use this script to doing things the old way through phpMyAdmin or some such)..but it's not like every person is like me in how I do things either.

So it would seem best to give away the basic functionality of this script (i.e upload changes to a DB automatically) while perhaps charging for the added capability of being able to syncronize files and directories of one's choice between a local installation of a web site and a hosted site.

That might be the best way to go.

Offering it for free through forum posts signatures (like right here or on other forums I belong to) and then building a list of those who download and use the free version where I can promote the enhanced capability to that list over time (good suggestion YasirYar).

I like the JV links you shared Dan and the idea of using the Google Network. Can I really pick a particular website to advertise on through that network? If I am not mistaken I think you are referring to Adsense type ads or banners but if so, aren't the exact placement of such pretty much up to Google? Where I can chose the general types of sites but where I cannot say that I want ads I pay for to only appear on a given website?

Carlos

Thanks for your encouragement Suzanne. Now if I can only find the time to make it what it can be!

I'll just have to make the time somehow.

Carlos

Thanks Fryde.

My eyes were opened through another thread I am active on to a potential way to get my product out and even get subscribers through signature links here.

This person is giving away 25 WordPress plugins or more specifically he is giving a way a script (apparently) that installs them all. Child's play for someone who knows what they are doing.

And not something I would normally even consider getting as it would likely be a very wasteful way to install plugins. That's not really what one wants to do with their WP install. Install a bunch of plugins all at once...the majority of which you probably don't even need.

But...and here's my point. He apparently gets subscribers which I found rather interesting.

If he can do that I certainly can do better!!

That was encouraging for me to see that in action.

I signed up and am going to go through his process to learn what I can from how he does things.

One thing is for sure...I've got to stop looking at things through the lens of only what I would do or not do. I am not everybody else and am rather selective about what I get or sign up for as for me personally...most of it is a waste of time.

But that doesn't mean it is for others!

I think looking at things only through the lens of what I would personally find valuable is one of the factors that has held me back. It's what others think is valuable that matters not what I think is valuable.

Carlos